


Transplanted

by katayla



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/pseuds/katayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-book look at Kasia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transplanted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/gifts).



Nieshka and I stood hand-in-hand at the Harvest Feast, and stared at the line of thirteen girls. They and their families stood across the green, separated from the rest of us. Set apart. All of our lives, we'd had them to look up to, to teach us what it meant to be Dragon-Born. After today, we would be the ones waiting and waiting, watching as babies were born this year, knowing they would share our fate. We would have to grow up. _I_ would have to grow up.

"It'll be our girls next," Nieshka's mother whispered to mine. She reached out to touch Nieshka's hair and Nieshka leaned back into her, confident in her mother's love.

My mother did not reach out to me. I thought I saw her hand twitch, but maybe it was my imagination. She had treated me differently this year. All my life, she had clung to me, but now she stepped back. Told me I had to grow up, I had to be brave. I had to learn my lessons and be smart and beautiful and perfect.

When the Dragon appeared, startling us all, though we had been waiting for him these past four hours, my mother pulled me towards her, and wrapped her arms around me. It was the first time she'd touched me in months. She drew me into her skirts and I felt her protection form a shield about me. Maybe, maybe she could save me.

But the Dragon didn't look at us. He strode in front of the girls, walking the line once, twice, three times. Then he made his choice. And there were only twelve girls in the line.

I'd meant to watch more closely, stare at the chosen one, learn what to do when my time came. But my mother clung to me tightly and I didn't want to be brave anymore.

\--

"My mother says it'll be you," Nieshka had whispered to me that night. My mother had sent me to spend the night, saying it was no good to get too used to sleeping in my own bed.

I shrank back from her, nearly to the edge of the bed. After the Dragon left that morning, the remaining twelve girls had seemed to melt away, reclaimed by their family. And while Nieshka and I played, discreet fingers would point our way, and at the other girls born our year. And then I would hear my name over and over again.

Kasia, Kasia, Kasia.

I wanted to tell them to stop, that it wasn't me. But my mother had pushed me away again and I could not find anyone who would look me in the eyes. And nobody would say anything to me. Nobody would put it into words, not all the way.

Nobody except Nieshka.

She curled up next to me and hugged me. "I don't want it to be you."

"It's all right," I said. "I don't mind." (I would say it over and over in the years to come. Did I mean it? I am not sure. It is hard to mind something you grow up knowing.)

" _I_ mind," she said. "I hate him."

I put my head on her shoulder. "Thank you."

\--

Sometimes we forgot. Sometimes my mother would turn the other way, as I slipped out of the house, and away from my lessons. I would run to Nieshka's house and she would somehow know I was coming.

We would run into the woods, so we were alone from anyone who would remind us, and play. And nobody cared if my dress tore or my hair tangled.

And Nieshka and I would make plans, like we had the right to, about what our lives would hold. Her life could be like this every day, if she chose it. If she had chosen a different friend. And yet she never seemed to regret it, her life tied to the girl with one foot out of the village.

At the end of the day, we would have to go home again. And my mother would make me take a bath and mend my own clothes and brush my hair until it shone in the moonlight. And I remembered exactly who I was.

\--

I stood next to Nieshka and breathed in and out. She looked gorgeous, my dearest friend. My only friend, for many years now. Nobody else had wanted to get too close and my mother warned me again and again about staying away from the boys. But Nieshka had stayed, and loved me, for all that I was doomed.

(And I? I suppose I looked beautiful as well. How could I not? My mother had traded all she could to dress me in the finest clothes available in the valley and stolen in my room early this morning to brush my hair a thousand strokes. She had put the brush down, stroked one hand down my hair, and said, "You will be a credit to us all.")

How long would this take? I could not stand be here any longer. Not when I knew it would all be lost at any moment. I'd never been part of this place and I wanted to be _gone_.

He came.

I tilted my chin up, so they would all remember me this way. Proud and brave and ready to do my part. 

\--

It wasn't me. I tried to stop him, tell him I was the one he was supposed to take, leave Nieshka alone. She wasn't ready, she hadn't had the years of preparation, oh Nieshka, it was supposed to be me.

And if it wasn't me, then why was it her? I never expected to be alone. (Alone? The way the boys looked at me, like if the Dragon didn't want me, I belonged with _them_. And my mother staring, staring, staring at me, like I'd done something wrong.)

I thought to be in the Dragon's tower tonight (in the Dragon's bed? Oh Nieshka, I should've passed on your mother's lessons). Not spending yet another sleepless night in my own bed.

What will I do now?


End file.
